Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. In this 45-minute talk, Geshe Pema Tsering tackles a central paradox: if practice aims at happiness, why must we give up wanting it? He unpacks the eight worldly dharmas — four paired cravings for gain, praise, pleasant words, and samsaric happiness — showing how each deepens pride, anger, and the causes of future suffering. He then connects these to Tonglen (giving-and-taking) meditation: by mentally sending away what we cling to and taking on what we dread, we loosen self-cherishing at its root. A vivid passage pushes this further, inviting practitioners to offer the body itself — flesh, blood, and bones — to anyone causing harm, reframing each attack as a teacher’s gift. A brief Q&A closes on the practical point that responding without anger is not the same as being passive.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 13 SoP 2004 08 22.mp3
UUID: 08f14caf-251e-440d-a87c-c6fc1a3a0f45
Teacher: Geshe Pema Tsering
Collection: Stages of the Path (Geshe Pema Tsering)
Date: 2004-08-22
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 45.3 minutes
Words: ~4,007
Now if we watch the way that our mind works, we’ll see that most of the things that we think are involved with everyday worldly Dharma. And because we’re so involved with daily worldly dharmas, it means that we can’t practice Dharma, to Dharma properly, the Buddhist Dharma properly. If you’re able to practice the Buddhist Dharma properly, then you would be able to progress along the path. But, because we’re so so overwhelmed by the eight worldly Dharma, we can’t find a moment to, you know, to concentrate on. It’s difficult for us to find a moment to concentrate on Buddha’s Dharma.
So we know this. If we watch the way that our mind works from the time we get up in the morning, we’re trying to find some way to make ourselves comfortable. We’re trying to find some way to keep any comfort that we experience. We’re trying to find some way to avoid any discomfort that we that may come about. So we spend a lot of time thinking this.
And then also if someone says anything pleasant to us. We really like them and we focus on figuring out ways to hear more pleasant things. And if someone says anything negative to us, then we are are label them as an enemy or someone that’s harmful to us and try and find ways to to get away from them. So being so distracted by these kind of thoughts, we hardly find a moment to be able to practice Buddha’s Dharma properly. And what we really need to do if we want to practice properly is stop focusing on these eight worldly dharmas.
These eight worldly dharmas here the wish that we have to have pleasant experiences and the our aversion to losing those pleasant experiences. So what this means is that we spend a lot of time trying to grasp onto pleasant experiences, and make sure that we don’t that we don’t lose them when we have them. So through focusing in this way then we are we think that this is going to make us happy. We have this idea that if we have pleasant experiences, we’re going to be alright. We’re going to be happy.
But in actual fact, what grasping after pleasant experiences does is increase our increase our experience of suffering. Now it does this in two ways. First of all, because we are only okay when we have pleasant experiences, and we are not very happy when we lose any pleasant experience. And so that’s the first way. The second way is that through focusing on desire and through grasping after pleasant experiences, then we are creating more negative karma.
Our affliction afflicted minds are increasing. And, therefore, we’re setting ourselves up to experience more suffering in the future. Mhmm. So we see getting pleasant experiences as something positive. And we are we are attached to that idea.
But in actual fact, being attached to the idea of pleasant experiences doesn’t bring pleasant experiences. It brings more suffering and more. So another example of this is that we want to hear present. We want to hear praise, and we don’t want to hear blank. And we think that hearing praise, then we’re going to be better off.
We’re going to be much happier if we hear this. But in actual fact the more praise we have the more arrogance we can develop. So the more pride that we can develop. And through developing pride we’re just setting ourselves up for experiencing more suffering. So we may spend a lot of time trying to avoid blame and trying to hear praise.
But in in actual fact praise doesn’t help us very much. If we have a hear a lot of praise and then we start thinking that we start to think that we’re better than everyone else. That we’re that we’re really good people and we start liking ourselves a little too much. We’re not we’re not actually liking ourselves a little too much. We’re actually liking what we perceive to be ourselves a little too much.
Much because we’re not actually taking our whole self into account. We’re not taking into account our faults. We’re not taking into account our pride. We’re not taking into account the negative things that we do. So we are liking ourselves too much, but we’re only liking a little bit of ourselves too much because we don’t recognise the rest of ourselves.
And so if we keep constantly striving for praise, seeking out praise, constantly striving for praise, seeking that that will make us happy, then it’s a it’s it’s a really pointless effort because praise doesn’t make us happy. Praise can, in fact, increase our afflictive emotions, increase our causes increase the causes that we may have to hurt to create negative karma and therefore experience suffering. So we’re constantly striving after praise as well, and this isn’t helping us in any way. It’s just creating more causes of suffering. Similar to wanting to hear praise and not wanting to hear blame.
But in this instance it’s more about surrounding ourselves with people that are going to help us solidify our self-cherishing. So surrounding ourselves with people that or or words that will encourage us to think of ourselves and concentrate on ourselves. I’ve got a morning. So it hasn’t been on the whole time? Well, it’s probably a good thing considering how lost I got at the beginning.
Yeah. So I noticed you only say this when I started making sense, so thanks. If we are surrounding ourselves with people who are going to be really nice to us and be pleasant to us all the time, then we’re not going to have any cause to look at self-. Cherishing. If we’re constantly being patted on the back or we’re constantly being encouraged in this way, then we’re going to develop again more pride.
We’re going to develop much more self-cherishing. We’re going to think we need to hear pleasant words, so develop desire and attachment much more. And again, chasing after these things, being attached to pleasant words, going to increase our afflictive emotions, increase our causes for suffering, like, increase our afflictive emotions, and therefore, the cause for us to experience to create negative karma, which will mean we experience suffering. I’m sorry. I forgot something from the the last two sets.
The other thing is if we were really attached to hearing pleasant things, then when anyone says anything slightly negative to us or slightly unpleasant, we are going to react with anger and spiteful words, so we won’t be able to practice patience in that way. Chasing after pleasant words is one thing, and then trying to avoid at all unpleasant words is another thing, which will cause us to react angrily when we hear unpleasant words and therefore create negative karma in that way. The last two of the Eight Worldly Dharmas is wanting to experience happiness and wanting not to experience suffering. Now, we may be very attached to the experience of happiness, and we may be wanting to experience happiness at all costs. But this happiness that we are searching after is in fact not happiness, it’s samsaric happiness, and therefore by its nature it is suffering.
We’re not understanding that this is suffering. We spend a lot of time, we put in a lot of effort, we have a lot of attachment to attaining this kind of happiness. But in actual fact, if we’re not striving for Buddhahood or liberation, we don’t know what true happiness is. The other thing that we have problems with is trying to avoid suffering in any form. By trying to avoid suffering in any form, we develop a strong aversion and we can develop strong hatred towards anyone who we perceive is harming us or creating suffering in us in any way.
So in this way, also chasing after happiness and trying to avoid at all cost suffering is another set of the eight worldly dharmas and something that doesn’t help us. So what we need to do is to be able to see the faults of these eight worldly dharmas. We need to see what’s wrong with them, what’s wrong with the way that we usually think and the things that we chase after. If we’re able to see the faults of the eight worldly dharmas, then we’re able to see the for what it is. We’re able to see the faults of saṃsāra.
And if we wanted to develop a way of thinking that renounces saṃsāra and is working towards personal liberation or Buddhahood, then this is what we need to do. We need to be able to see the faults of these eight worldly Dharma. We need to see how we think that we are making ourselves happy by chasing after them, but in actual fact, we’re just making ourselves miserable, and we’re creating the causes for saṃsāra by by being agitated by chasing after them. So this is gonna seem a bit weird to us. Right?
Because we’re basically saying we have to give up wanting to be happy, and that was the whole point that we were trying to progress along the path in the first place, to be happy. Why would we do virtuous things if we didn’t want to be happy? The definition of virtuous thing is something that is a cause for happiness. So the reason we do virtuous things is because we wanna be happy. And then here we are saying, oh, we don’t wanna we we have to give up wanting to be happy.
Okay. So the reason that we think this, the reason we have a problem with this idea is because we think that samsaric happiness is happiness. We it as happiness. We experience it as happiness, and we keep striving after it because this is our understanding of happiness. We don’t understand what true happiness is, and we don’t understand that samsaric happiness isn’t that, that samsaric happiness is actually a form of suffering.
It’s just that it’s a form of suffering and we don’t have the perception to understand it as that. So, not understanding samsaric happiness is actually suffering, then we have spent a lot of time chasing after it, trying to create the causes for it. We have a habit that has been solidified or a habit that has been strengthened since beginningless time towards doing this. We have this habit of working towards samsaric happiness, thinking that that will make us happy. We have become so engrossed in our pursuit of our version of the eight worldly dharmas, but actually seeing beyond that and trying to see what is true happiness is very difficult for us.
It’s something we need to do a lot of work to achieve. Because we don’t understand this, we’re continually creating the causes for saṃsāra. Through chasing after saṃsāra of happiness, we’re creating the causes for saṃsāra. And if we’re going to create the causes for saṃsāra, then we’re going to continue to abide in saṃsāra. So in actual fact, samsaric happiness is what we perceive as samsaric happiness is something to be abandoned.
I mean, it’s not something that we wanna work towards. And what we wanna work towards is personal liberation and Buddhahood. If we have the motivation for any positive action that we do as we’re doing this in order to achieve personal liberation or we’re doing this in order to achieve Buddhahood, then the karma that we accumulate through doing that action is untainted karma. Untainted karma isn’t caused by neurosis and its result is true happiness. As ordinary beings, it’s almost impossible for us to have a motivation that this is pure.
If we had a motivation that was that pure, then we would never do anything. We would have no neurosis. We would have no reasons to continue in saṃsāra. We would have no reasons to continue in saṃsāra. But we need to do the best that we can to approximate pure motivation to the best we can. So if we do something that is focused on getting out of saṃsāra, that is achieving Buddhahood, then the motivation for that is a true motivation, a reasonable motivation, because we’re actually working towards something that is happiness.
If we’re doing something in order to experience happiness in saṃsāra, which we usually do, then the motivation is faulty, the motivation is neurotic, So the outcome isn’t going to be particularly beneficial to us. The outcome is going to be an experience of suffering, even though we may not necessarily perceive it at that time. So this idea of working towards liberation and working towards Buddhahood, the idea of working towards a happiness that isn’t contaminated anyway, a happiness that isn’t temporary, a happiness that isn’t in saṃsāra, is something that is actually unique, I guess, as far as he knows, to the Buddhist religion. Other religions have this idea of working towards a happy state, a state like a God realm or a state of heaven or purified or a state which comes about through immovable karma, which is like a meditative state. They have the idea of working through these things, the idea of completely abandoning the causes for suffering from within our own mind stream and creating liberation for ourselves.
Also, to work towards Buddhahood for the sake of all sentient beings is something that is unique to Buddhism. This idea of working towards enlightenment for the benefit of all sentient beings is unique to Mahāyāna Buddhism. That’s the definition of Mahāyāna Buddhism. So it’s unique to Buddhism, but that doesn’t mean that it’s easier to be a Buddhist because actually achieving this goal, actually working through this goal, incredibly hard. The whole idea of getting rid of all your afflictive emotions by yourself through your own work is an incredibly difficult goal.
It’s something that has to have a lot of effort put into it, and it takes a long time to bring about. So this idea may be unique to Buddhism, but it is also difficult to achieve, and it’s difficult to understand, let alone achieving it. It’s difficult for us to understand that saṃsāra is suffering. It’s difficult for us to understand that working towards some kind of bliss existence of a god realm is not the best way to go. So it’s difficult to get there.
It’s difficult to understand it. Because of this, this probably means that Buddhism can explain things clearer. And that makes sense in a way. So this probably means that the Buddhist Dharma may be the most profound, if you look at it from this perspective, of all the different dharmas that are put forward because it talks about things at their complete level from a personal perspective and does this in a very clear way right to the end. So this on on another level, this practice that we’ve been talking about for the last few weeks of I just told you guys for five minutes left and you went, what?
He’s just about to start doing the text. On another level, this practice that we’ve been going through for the last few weeks of Tonglen, of giving and taking, is also a way for us to get over our attachment to the eight worldly dharmas. Because what we’re actually doing is sending out all of the things that we want and taking on all the things that we don’t want. Within these eight worldly dharmas, there’s four sets of two. One being something we don’t want, and then something else being something we do want.
We do want happiness, we don’t want suffering, and we do want to hear pleasant words, we don’t want to hear unpleasant words, and so on. So the Tonglen practice, the giving and taking practice, can actually be a way for us to work with our eight worldly dharmas as well. It can be a way for us to get over our attachment to the eight worldly dharmas. So therefore, in the text, it says this, if we perceive things in this way, if we’ve understood the way, actually, we can get so attached to things that make us feel happy or prideful or desirous. If someone is about to harm us, we can actually think of it in this way: that this being that is harming us may be harming us now, but in many other lifetimes, they have been a mother and shown us nothing but great kindness.
And not only so that was the situation then. And now, because of being overcome by afflictive emotions, they are encouraged to do harm to us. And they may actually end up in hell because of or in a negative experience because of the things that they’re doing to us. At the same time as this is happening to them, these people who have shown us great kindness in the past and now because of afflictive emotions and neurosis are behaving negatively and will have to experience the consequences of their actions. From our side, what this negative action is giving us is an opportunity to develop qualities.
It’s giving us an opportunity to develop, to practice mind training, to practice patience, to develop compassion. Also, if we think about this person harming us, then they themselves, as a being who was once our mother and is going to experience suffering because of the negative things they’re doing, are actually the source for us to be able to develop the compassion that wishes all sentient beings to be free of suffering. And through developing this compassion, will be able to get rid of all of results of the negative actions that we have experienced in the past. So we should think that may their obstructions negative obstructions of their negative actions ripen on us right now, and may they take all of the roots of our virtue and all of our virtue to create the causes in their mind stream for happiness and practice Tonglen or giving and taking in this way when we’re experiencing harm from others. So because of this, and there’s a we can extend our practice of Tonglen out to all the beings that want to do harm to anyone.
And if think in this way, then our attachment to ourselves and our bodies will become less. We can see this. We can even if we’re thinking about beings, especially non human beings, want to do harm to people physically, then we can even practice this Tonglen with our own body. And we can think that if you want my body, then take it. We can say that sentient beings who are trying to harm us are like our kind teachers.
And so if you want if you want this collection of blood and bones and You do? I don’t know how to translate it. Like, yeah, not nice stuff, then then have it. So it says, if you if you want my flesh, then have my flesh. If you want my blood, then have my blood.
If you want my bones, then take my bones. And if you want the yeah. Puss, I guess. Yeah. Puss, then take the puss.
And if you have this idea, you think by doing this, by being able to give away everything that is mine, including the elements of my body, then you have shown me the great kindness by giving me a cause to develop the mind of enlightenment that with which I can meditate and walk search towards or move towards enlightenment. So in this way, even though it to in appearances, it looks like you’re harming me. In actual fact, your kindness to me has been great, and you are a great help to my meditation. So in this way, then we are giving away all our happiness and all our possessions in a visualization to all our kind mother sentient beings and taking on all of their suffering. If we’re able to start thinking like this, if we’re able to see every situation as an opportunity to develop compassion as opposed to an opportunity to apportion blame, then we’ll be able to do, as Śāntideva said in the way of life, to look for the positive qualities in any situation, and not blame anyone else for suffering.
Sorry. I can finish then if you have any questions. Yes. Definitely, we can use that, Tonglen, in order to forgive people who have done negative things to us in the past. And the way that we could start doing the meditation on Tonglen for these people is to think, okay.
So it seems to me as if they’ve harmed me in some very serious way in this lifetime. But and this is one lifetime. And for me to experience that kind of suffering, I must have done something to create the causes for it. And apart from that, because we are connected in this way, at some stage in the path, they have been my mother and shown me nothing but great kindness. So the negative thing they’ve done here, however serious it may seem in the context of this life, isn’t as serious in the context of many lives.
In actual fact, they are showing me kindness in the past, and here they are giving me the opportunity to forgive, to practice patience, to develop a virtuous mind. So based on that, then we can have the idea of sending them all our happy our happiness and taking on all their suffering. Yep. Do you wish somebody? Even if you don’t have questions, Geshe hasn’t finished his tea.
Oh, I’m learning your talent. You’re welcome. Okay. He said if there’s no questions, I’ll try and drink it fast. He said, really?
You don’t have any questions. Okay. Sorry. I didn’t see. Yeah.
If someone’s asking to you now Yeah. We think that the Sure. Yeah. Absolutely. If we have the opportunity to stop anyone doing something negative, we should, by all means, stop them.
Right? What this is referring to is if we don’t have that opportunity. Yes. Heather. My question was similar.
I was watching a documentary. You know, there’s some friends and one of them. The trouble with Buddhists is they’re so passive. Uh-huh. Okay.
So the point is not to be passive. The point is not to react with anger. Alright? So if if someone says something insulting to you and you react angrily, then that’s really not helpful. If you are able to not be angry and to think compassionately for this person, thinking they just created the causes for experiencing suffering.
They’re going to have to experience suffering in the future from that and what they did, and you’re able to react from a point of view of compassion to that action in order to stop them doing that in the future, in order to explain something to them, then that’s fine. That’s grace. That’s grace. So the point is not to react from anger. It’s not not to react.
Yeah. So this is something we just really need to learn to understand is that this is what happens in Samsāra. In Samsāra, people will hurt us and we will we will hurt people. We will experience the results of our negative actions and we will create negative actions. Other people will create negative action perform negative actions and create negative karma towards us and vice versa.
We continue do this until we achieve liberation. So that’s the point of getting out of saṃsāra, that you’re not in a situation where you’re creating negative karma or experiencing the results of negative karma. But we have to, first of all, learn to understand that that’s what happens in saṃsāra. Okay. So this is done.
Unless anyone else has got a question.